Significant earthquakes of 1775

April 18, 1775 Earthquake: Banda Sea, Indonesia

April 18, 1775

An earthquake struck Banda Sea, Indonesia on April 18, 1775. It caused a tsunami.

Map

Where it struck, with the other significant earthquakes within 200 km. Circles are sized and colored by magnitude; select one for its page.

The earthquake

Date
April 18, 1775
Place
Banda Sea, Indonesia
Epicenter
3.700° S, 128.200° E
Country
Indonesia
Region
Central and South Pacific

The toll

Damage
Limited (under about $1 million)

Where the literature gives no number, NCEI records a description on a scale of 1 to 4, printed here in its words. Damage is in millions of US dollars of the year of the event, not adjusted for inflation.

What the record says

NCEI’s account, from the sources it cites.

Reference #414:

1775, April 19, about 1:00 [local time]. At Ambon, there were strong undulating oscillations, which were accompanied by a dull underground rumble and lasted 5 minutes. The wall of the rice storehouse cracked and a small pavilion collapsed. The water in the bay oscillated greatly. A moored ship was pulled forcefully backwards and forwards.

Reference #496:

1775, April, night between 18 and 19. Island of Amboyna. A violent shock from S.W. to N.E. The motion lasted altogether five minutes. A ship in the bay was driven violently forwards, and then backwards. Accompanied by a rumbling noise. The air was clear, and the weather perfectly calm. A wall of the rice warehouse which ran N.W. and S.E. was rent in a horizontal direction, just under where the rafters were inserted, for more than 40 feet.

Sources NCEI cites

The publications NCEI lists for this record. The numbers match the “reference #” notes in its account above.

  1. #414 Soloviev, S.L., and Ch.N. Go (1974). A catalogue of tsunamis on the western shore of the Pacific Ocean [dates include 173-1968. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Nauka Publishing House, Moscow, 439 p. [Canadian Translation of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences no. 5077, 1984, translation available from Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information, National Research Council, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A OS2, 447 p.]
  2. #496 Mallet, Robert (1854). Catalogue of Recorded Earthquakes from 1606 B.C. to A.D. 1850, Part II, 1755 A.D. to 1784 A.D., Report of the 23rd Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Hull, Sept. 1853, John Murray, London, p. 118-212.

Other significant earthquakes nearby

Within 200 km, the deadliest first.

More

Significant earthquakes of 1775The 1700sRecent earthquakes near hereThis day in weather history

Sources

Significant earthquakes from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Global Historical Hazard Database, cited as NCEI/WDS, doi:10.7289/V5PN93H7. Public domain. Read 2026-10-01. NCEI earthquake 5919.